You start to recognize the smell on the way, as you sprint out onto the trampled trail that leads to the lake like a bat out of hell, with all the energy you're hardly expected to have preserved, as malnourished as you are—it's leaded gasoline, old and unreliable. She can't do this. Did Ben go with them? You might not make it. The sun is hiding, like it's commiserating, or heralding a chasmal cataclysm. You are afraid. Please stop her. You have to stop her.

You step on worms, the creamy mush of their dead bodies sticking to your soles and crumbling off in misshapen globules along the way, as you brush past the yellowing greenery like the messenger with the winged sandals. You run until your knees ache, reddened and tender from all those days spent hunting, chasing game for miles in tormenting desperation as thickets of bramble canes and buckthorn twigs scrape your shins till your skin is peeling off and rivulets of blood are running down your legs to soak into the dirty cotton of your socks. Hope always dies last. Soon you hear the distant whir of a shoddy engine.

"If anyone's doing it, it's gotta be me," you reason. "I've flown with grandpa too." "I have a decade of experience on you." "And I'm lighter!" she snaps. Her voice takes on a pitch you've only heard once or twice before. It startles some of the girls, but nobody moves. You take a deep breath through your nose, clenching your teeth with a finality you know she's able to recognize as imperative. "No." "No?" "You aren't flying that damn plane," you restate. The weight of it hangs between you for a moment, as she holds your gaze and doesn't back down. You're trained to see it: the stubbornness she's capable of harboring in the face of worldly authority. You'd like to think you aren't that—authority; but a friend—a brother, a beacon and a shield, a slave to devotion and whatever kind of mean you need to be to keep her safe. "Well, there's two of you," she declares, looking between you and Ben, "And seventeen of us. So." 'So'. Teenage-girl-speak for 'I got your ass'. Ridiculous of her to appeal to practicalism in this situation, like you'd let a bunch of kids condemn her to her death. Like you'd let her hurt herself again. So they have the majority. Who cares? You know their eyes are on you. It doesn't change a thing. "No one's flown that thing in years, Laura Lee!" you scowl. "You realize how many ways there are for you to fucking die before you even take off, let alone when you get up there?" "I don't care!" she retorts animatedly. "I need to do this. You think you're gonna be able to keep hunting every day when winter comes? Yeah, no way in hell!" Need? Hell? This can't be the 'purpose' she thinks she has found. Yet she's never been this forceful before—not with you, not with your parents, not when she had to take the fall to keep an undeserving friend's affection in the fourth grade, not when normally she would've said 'H-E double hockey sticks' instead. You shake your head, unyielding. "I'm not letting you do this." A glossy coat of some inexplicable sadness settles over the pale blue of her determined eyes. "Then I have no choice," she mutters, looking away—at Misty, who's shifting inauspiciously a foot away from where you're standing, then at the ground. She's struggling to look you in the eye now, and sounds confusingly apologetic. "I'll just have to see you later, when we get home," she swallows. "I'm sorry." You don't get to ask. Something solid collides with the back of your skull and the tension in the room, their expectant stares, the argument, the draft, her hands fisting in the fabric of her dress—all fades out.

They're screaming. Cheering, you realize as you get closer, and laughing. You strain to hear it through the sounds you're making—urgent footsteps, heavy panting, breaking branches—but the backdrop to the childlike uproar is a low drone that tells you it's entirely too late.

You step out onto the clearing just as it dies down. There is his silhouette, one-legged and eerily stiff, standing still a few feet in front of you. There are the others: voiceless now, and frozen on the rocky beach below. You see it—for a second—the alarming throb of the propeller, a terrible mechanical rumble, and the smoke. It wails, veers slightly to the side, then explodes loudly enough to dredge a cleft into your trembling heart. You drop to your knees. Someone cries out.

Your limbs go numb. You can't look away. The sweat dripping down the side of your neck turns ice cold, unforgiving. Your mouth is open, but the air turns toxic, unbreathable. It's beautiful, your brain files away incoherently, like you're the drunken witness of a common atrocity. Yellow, filthy brown and that lifeless gray—you watch like it's a screen, a familiar Antonioni projection: ashes, rusty cuts of aluminum alloy and loose debris flying over the sandy Californian dunes; the American Dream smashed to smithereens before it's even had the chance to live. Satire, not nihilism, but just as agonizing. Your eyes defocus before you can decipher anything, but the horror nags at you from the back of your mind: a vivid vision of the only sight you couldn't bear—her leg, severed and in free fall, or an arm, a lump of a lung, the fibrous tissue of some featureless patch of skin, charred and mortifyingly unrecognizable.

Your feet start moving faster than your rational brain can keep up. You get up and hurriedly take off your sneakers; a moment later you're running again. You dash past Ben, over wobbly rocks and soggy soil. He shouts after you. You aren't listening.

Your shirt goes off next, as you brush past Shauna and Nat in a daze. You toss it behind you and keep speeding up to try to avoid losing edge in the tough, marshy terrain. The water still slows you down. You throw yourself into it, headlong. Absentmindedly, you note Lottie is there, sunken to her knees, gone pale and strangled by shaky sobs. You charge past her. Someone is crying. Someone else shouts. You start swimming straight at it. Maybe she jumped out in time. Maybe you just didn't see.

You've always been a strong swimmer. Now that you're here, you're glad you've taught her well too, just in case. She'll use it for good from now on. She'll use it to live. You spend your free time at the lakeside, messing around with the holes in the gill net. The weather is changing, you can tell by the wind. There's hardly been any luck with the regular kind, and you don't know jack shit about ice fishing either—the forecast for winter is not looking promising. There has to be something you're missing. "Need some help with that?" Ben's voice breezes in from behind you. "Nah, it's alright, I've got it," you say, struggling with a knot in the cord. "Think I can get it fixed before sunset." You hear the clatter of his crutches as he takes a few steps toward you. "Honestly, you'd be doing me a favor. I kinda need something useful to do… with my hands." You turn to glance at him from over your shoulder. His hair's grown a tad longer, a few dark locks coiling over his forehead, occasionally swept to the side by a quick gust. You know you can never refuse that pleading look in his eye, a little tired now and as dark as tree bark, so you tilt your head to beckon him to the empty space next to you. "Get over here." He drops the crutches onto the gravel and, with a bit of effort, sits down. You don't help because you know his pride wouldn't let you. "So this is what you've been doing when you're not out on a hunt," he says, reaching for the suspension line. "Gotta let those kids have some alone time, you know," you smirk, because you both know Nat and Travis would rather be out there together instead of being paired with you. He hums. "They're getting pretty good. Might not even need us anymore soon." "Getting worried, old man?" you quip, taking advantage of his honesty, the compromising state of his wet shoes. And even though he's made himself sound casual, the confession disguised as an offhand comment, he seems more pensive than usual—so you follow up with something more reassuring. "They won't. Because we're getting outta here soon." "Yeah? You sure fishing in some lake in the middle of nowhere isn't your newfound calling?" You huff and peer over to the other end of the shoreline—the grassy part that bleeds into the mudflat, where Lottie and Laura Lee are looking for more edible mushrooms. "My eyes are always on the Lord, for he will pull my feet out of the net," you quote somewhat wistfully, gaze landing on Laura Lee's blue headband. He rolls his eyes. "Okay, smartass. Maybe you should've dropped soccer for preaching." "And miss my chance to play with big shot Scott? No way." He snorts. You steal a glance at him while you keep working: at his hands—roughened and begrimed as he handles the net—and his bandaged leg, at the swollen skin under his eyes. Still handsome. Still alive. "Come on, mopey, just admit you like having me around," you tease. "Fine. You're lucky you're decent enough with the shotgun," he jokes; looks up and—knowingly or not—shifts as he speaks so that his thigh comes to rest flush with yours. "But yeah. Thank fuck you're here. I honestly don't know how I would've… handled all this without you." You swallow down your heartbeat and avert your eyes. Lottie's gentle laughter rings off in the distance; the wind picks it up and carries it out over the water. "Yeah. Yeah, me too."

You swim until your lips are chapped from windburn and the water droplets only make it worse—a constant sting. You think of her, that stupid Bible camp, the chlorine in her lungs, blood sticking to her wet hair, the explanation you accepted so readily. You keep thinking of her, the smoothness of her voice as she assured you she was fine, as she appealed to your penchant for forgiveness till you reluctantly agreed to hide it from your parents as long as she promised to be extra careful from that moment onwards. You fail to fight it off until eventually the heartache makes you want to squeeze your eyes so tightly it hurts and bare your teeth—a defensive mechanism of the blameful and the weak. Please. Please, don't leave, I'm still here. Not all water is clean. Not all water heals.

You swim blindly and frantically until your arm strikes what looks like a floating chunk of the Cessna's worn-down fuselage. The impact sends a jolt of pain through your fingers that travels up to your elbows, so you groan and stop dead in your tracks. You look around and find yourself paddling in murky waters—viscous engine oil and leftover hydraulic fluids. You glide around the burnt rubber of a tailwheel and an indented fragment of the empennage covered in bug splatter. You touch them thoughtlessly, let yours fingers brush across their surface as you maneuver between them, like you're hoping the contact will ground you.

You used to wish for wings, for gills. Greedy, yes, but you've never pretended to be selfless. It's human nature. Selfishness is the right kind of vice. You're selfish. That's how you keep her safe. Or anyone. What if you could dwell underwater, what if it was as easy as breathing and no place was out of reach—what of its sanctity then? Or what does it matter, when the expression is faulty? The tether breaks and you're wheezing, gasping for breath no matter the scene, all because she was born and you wanted to fill up her ribcage with all of the air stored in yours.

You scan the area for hours. Every new find throws you in the same gut-wrenching nightmare. She isn't here. She isn't anywhere. You've fallen just short of salvation, hopeless after all.

Silly dreamer, sentimental and worthless, you aren't Uriel, but Abaddon. You dive in again and again, searching desperately, past the sticky grease hanging on the surface and as deep as you can handle before your eyes are burning and the pressure in you chest becomes unbearable. Eventually, you find the cross—lying at the bottom. The same as yours. It's missing its chain. You let out a guttural sound, drowned out by the lake-water you're submerged in.

"Infectious, isn't she?" you grin, leaning on the cabin column on the opposite side of him, attention fixed on the hubbub around the campfire. "She's always been proactive," Ben says, watching them too. Your sister throws out another joke and the girls around her erupt in choral laughter. "No kidding," you hum. "Remember that, uh, Davidson fiasco at Rutgers?" He turns to look at you, raising an eyebrow—clearly clueless. "Yeah, you seniors never did give a fuck about sophomore-level drama," you jab. "Goalie sub getting suspended ring a bell?" "Oh, dude…" he drawls breathily, like it's just hit him. "Didn't he almost get his D1 rescinded?" "Uh-huh," you nod. "He was going through a rough patch. Didn't deserve it. I kinda knew everyone else felt the same, but no one wanted to speak up at the time. So, very last minute, Teddy and I went to talk to coach. Told him we wouldn't play without him," you pause and take a breath; he listens. "It was the right thing to do, but I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for Laura Lee. She has a sense for these things, you know, even when she was as tall as a pea. So she saw me struggling, I guess… and you know what she said?" He keeps his eyes on you, expectant and uncharacteristically patient in the dark of night. You smile wearily, shoot him a look and recite the quote, just as she had done to you: "Can you really speak righteousness in silence?" "Yeah, sounds about right," he breathes out a weak chuckle. "It's a good thing. Her… passion. Keeps morale high." "Yeah. I just—" you try, stumbling now that you're compelled to acknowledge your vulnerability. Why does he have that effect on you? "I don't wanna be overbearing. I know she's—" you falter, "Soon she won't need me anymore. Or anyone. She'll graduate and go to college, get a job… I just can't help but worry sometimes. She's brave. Brave and reckless. You know? She doesn't even think things through sometimes, just jumps right in," you stop to consider the image, scoffing humorlessly. "She'd hate that metaphor." "Hey," he says, slow and cautious. You recognize it as his attempt at being comforting. "Laura Lee is a smart girl. I actually think she's one of the smartest, most… determined and kindhearted students I've ever met." Your eyebrows knit together—because you're responsive and fearful. Because he is right and that's what worries you. "Yeah. It's… everything feels like it's amplified tenfold out here, so it just feels like any misstep…" you taper off. "Oh, it is. But I can't imagine how much worse it would've been if you hadn't tagged along." It's a little dry—the honest struggle of a laboring class cynic, but his eyes are sober when they bore into yours, like it's personal for him too and he means it in full. "She's lucky to have you. And so are the rest of us." He's always been attentive, toughened but temperamental when it comes to all the things that serve as proof of his tenacity and independence. People always crave the balance—but he doesn't yield a lot, even though you're both team players, and perhaps it's true you give away too much. You'd like to think it doesn't count as long as you're still standing. He is willing to get mushier with you, too (granted, adult company is hard to find these days, and you don't trust yourself to reflect lucidly on your soft spots). You let yourself believe the reason he opts for Misty over you when he needs help squatting behind the bushes might just be the same as yours—why you indulge Mari when she goes to play with your hair, how adamant you are on brushing off all concern, on pushing yourself each day as much as the one before, what tone of voice you use when night falls and everyone gets a little nervous. You're both good pretenders and guilt won't die with you. You fiddle with the pendant dangling from your neck—simple, golden, the twin of your sister's—and keep feeding into the pretense that his consideration doesn't mean enough to you and shouldn't soothe you.

The clouds are so close. They're tattered and fog-like, stretching out their ghostly white limbs downward to scare you. You stare up at the vaporous condensation through bleary eyes, unable to pierce through to the other side, while the tears stream down your temples and mix with the settling water. If the sky and the lake traded places, would anything change? Still, you'd be looking at one of two suns, or a distorted reflection, and either way you'll have to believe in a lie. The temperature's dropping. You remain starfished on the surface for a long time, letting your ears fill up till you've dulled at least one of your senses. You think about the depth right below, the time it would take for your oxygen to run out, and your heart lunges at the prospect of trying to set a world record.

You close your eyes: you're back in the bathtub, legs weightless and flabby, arms weakly sliding off the sides as you try out that cliché performance (it's overdone)—sinking lower slowly, pretending to live somebody else's memories, willing your body to be all-enduring, imagining a house where you'll always be needed. Was that also your fault—the sneak peek you took at her diary the week after you'd driven her back from camp? Were you so wrong, when it was right there, on her desk, and all you did was read a page she'd forgotten to flip in passing?

The point isn't to try your luck at drowning, but to test your patience. You promised her a trip to the city during spring break—all on you. She'll knock on the bathroom door soon.

Or how about one last roadtrip the summer before college? We can stop at a drive-in, I heard they're still playing The Princess Bride here and there. Hey, by the way, how's that new coach treating you? Did you remind him about that one-on-one yet?

Steel-toed golden boy, your days are numbered. Bespeckled with daylight and righteous, are you the one who's been tasked with stirring the Pool of Bethesda? Did you forget? You keep your shoulders muscled with duty, your legs carry the weight of the mountains, your gilded hair illuminates the way ahead, but aren't you candied and soluble? There is a quiet storm bubbling up from the basin, the waves silence your footsteps, your voice, your brawn and intentions.

Your tank top is drenched in sweat. You don't slow your pace regardless, lifting the axe high and chopping log after log in uneven quarters. "You like him," she says right before you cleave through a big one. The wood tumbles off the makeshift chopping block. Breathless, you turn to her to ask a simple: "What?" She angles her head and raises her eyebrows pointedly, urging you to follow suit. You do—looking over to the other side of the cabin where Ben sits as comfortably as he can, while Misty carefully drags a razor along the curve of his jaw. You twist back to face Laura Lee only to be met with the hint of a knowing smile. "I think he likes you too," she adds lightheartedly before you can react, leaning into her palm so that it cups her cheek. Her arm itself is propped up on her knee, as she sits on the edge of the cabin platform to watch you work. You open your mouth and close it again. She's always been awfully perceptive. Caught off guard, you take a second to muse over possible approaches of deflection, sparing another glance sideways. Does everyone see what you see? You must look ridiculous in these moments, noticing things you aren't supposed to. He is rigid and clearly anxious. Misty keeps holding him tightly and guiding his head in different directions to get better access. Sunlight settles in his curls like gold dust and shaves off the side of his face—highlights the contour of his cheekbone, the length of his stubbly chin. Your eyes drop to the ground and you let out a breathless sound somewhere between an exhale and a defeated laugh. "No," you shake your head, bending to pick up the pieces of firewood. "No, he's, uh… he's got someone else. Back home." "How do you know?" she asks, gentle, with genuine curiosity. You make up your mind and lay your cards on the table. "I've met his boyfriend." "Oh." "Yeah." After a moment's silence, she just mutters: "Well, I still think he likes you." You scoff and set up another log for the chopping. "I'm serious," she insists. "We don't choose who we're drawn to. Sometimes we think we know what's best and settle for something that makes sense to us, but… God will lead the right people to each other when it's time, regardless of the situation you are in. Or maybe because of it. You just have to trust that whoever is meant for you will follow His guidance and find his way to you." You're still holding the axe at your side and the log is intact. You like that she likes when you stop and just listen. A bead of sweat threatens to roll off your brow, so you wipe it with the back or your hand. She's calm and assured, sounds cutely inspired. "When did you get so wise, huh?" you reach out and poke her with your elbow. "I'm just saying," she shrugs. "He may have someone else back home, but his eyes are saying something different out here. The way he looks at you, it's… it's saying something else." There is something unfairly simple about how she sees you—how you give yourself away without even meaning to and she catches the clues with no effort. "You know, it's actually more cruel if you give me hope," you tell her, good-humored because she really does mean it and you're more pleased than you'd like to admit. "Hope springs eternal…" she sighs, trailing off. As always, you soften, shaking your head just once amusedly. You lift up the axe one more time and swing hard. The log doesn't split to the bottom, so you lean over it and brute force the remainder apart. As you're throwing the chunks in the big pile to the side, you hear her quietly giggle. "What?" you probe, smiling subconsciously. "Misty's gonna be so upset when she finds out." And you can't help but laugh at that, freely and easily.

By the time your eyes dry out, the salt has turned to silt at the bottom of the lake and the ripples you provoke with every minuscule movement melt alway around you like maple syrup.

The sky has cleared up. It's turning dark. You stopped developing goosebumps hours ago, yet your body is ice-cold, like you've been bled dry. Your bones weigh heavy with moisture, your skin looks sickly—raw and damnable. This is what you deserve—it's yours, you laid claim to it a long time ago. Don't you feel better, now that your nerves have been cut from the inside before they reach their endings? The pendant's weight is pulling you toward the deep end, it's an anchor with a thirst for blood. You hold it tightly. Aren't you bereft of purpose? Don't you want the coup de grâce?

You've come to believe, since it's easy, in the atemporal argument for causation, the hierarchy of things: the first cause needs to be omnipresent. Logic says otherwise: the chain of contingencies can't be reliant on a necessary cause. Now you're alone and the only person who would've been able to reckon with the fallacy with the same peace of mind as accepting a yellow card is gone—all you have left is a hole as deep as your doubt. She put all her faith in providence and deprived you of the freedom to hedge your bet. The absence isn't figmental, but something abdominal.

You could write her choice off as some ruthless event of concursus dei. A Thomist certainly would. Right now, you'd rather touch bottom than blame her.

When you finally get out, most of the people have cleared. Dripping and shivering against your will, you walk straight to Lottie. She is unmoving, arms pulling her knees against her chest. The sight is harrowing and that cutting sensation in your chest tightens its grip. You see in her a mirror image: the iconoclasts have it out for you. You come to a stop in front of her, but her eyes remain empty. Wordlessly, you stretch out an arm and uncurl your fingers, palm facing up. It takes her a painful moment, but soon she manages to lift her gaze—it lands on the cross first, then trails up to your face. Her cheeks are stained with dried tears.

She takes it. That's all you can do. You meet Ben's eyes for an instant, too faint and hazy in the brain to assimilate the fact that he's still here too (still here for you), and head to the woodland behind him, disappearing amid the trees.

"Hey," she whispers. You lie down beside her—she's saved you a spot. Everyone else is sleeping already, huddled together on the cabin floor like soldiers at war. "Hey. Didn't mean to wake you," you whisper back apologetically. "It's okay." You can't see very well, but the shape of her tells you she's turning to face you on top of the blanket you share. "I baptized Lottie today," she says after you've made yourself comfortable. "What?" "Yeah. In the lake," she explains. Something about her hushed voice makes it sound like she's smiling. "She wanted to take the next step, walk with God. He's been communicating with her." "Yeah?" you say softly. Her head moves ever so slightly, like she's nodding. "You should've seen it," she continues, dreamy. "It was… wonderful." "You two have gotten pretty close, huh?" "Yeah, she's a really good friend. Especially now. I feel closer to her than anyone else here." "Woah, closer than Leonard?" you place a hand on your chest—a show of faux outrage. It pulls a quiet snicker out of her. "Leonard is different," she says thoughtfully after. "And so are you. With her it's… it's kind of like you and Coach." You've seen the way they interact, but the comparison still takes you by surprise. She's never had qualms about you, never even needed to ask; always generously shares her love with everyone except herself. Now it occurs to you that this is what she's been missing. Lottie is different. Lottie means hope. "That bad?" you teeter on the line between truth and light banter. "What's so bad about love?" You take a deep breath. "What's bad is… that it hurts. That it makes you careless and vulnerable. But the good outweighs the bad. So you need to take care of each other." "Don't worry," she lilts quietly. "He will take care of us. Lottie's seen it." "Okay. Just— you stick together, okay? In case one of these days… I don't come back." "Don't say that. You know that—" "Just promise me, okay?" "Okay," she mutters eventually. "I promise. But you can't leave me." "Wouldn't dream of it," you breathe, comforting and confident—for her sake. "I've always got your back, okay? No matter how much longer we have to stay out here." The blankets rustle faintly as she shifts in the darkness. You adjust your position and she snuggles into you, fingers finding purchase in the fabric of your shirt. You both need to rest now, especially if you want to avoid waking the others. "Maybe it won't have to be much longer," she murmurs and yawns. "Mm?" "Nothing, just…" she manages groggily, "everyone has a purpose, right? I think I know mine now." You want to ask. But it can wait. For now, she needs sleep—so you pull up the blanket to cover her properly and close your eyes.

He comes to find you in the morning. You're sat on the shore again, staring off into the distance, watching the steam fog disperse above the lake's surface. He plops down next to you silently. You don't have the strength to react.

You stay like that for a while. He doesn't remind you, doesn't ask you to change, to eat. You're grateful. Maybe you'll tell him later; or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll starve. Or live with the necrotizing muscle. You know she'd want you to—for Lottie, for the others. She'd ask you to love them the same. You do—only through her, Wiskayok's very own martyr. Can't she just let you be selfish? You can be virulent, there is still time. You can go back and desecrate all of their precious institutions, buy an old Pontiac and get blood on your teeth. Lord, for the sake of your name, forgive my iniquity, for it is immense, you would pray and call it a day. Can't she just let you?

"I'm sorry," Ben rasps, his breath coming out in visible puffs. "I tried to stop her. I couldn't—" he cuts himself off, like a lump's lodged in his throat.

This was always going to happen. Still, you'd rather fill your pockets with stones and walk forward until the hypoxia hits and your body convulses than take a drink from Lethe. The sound of the carillon will make you repent. Lottie's hunger will keep you company.

You turn to peer at him, jaw tight, and nod. The brown of his eyes looks so dense in the unlit morning hour, it feels like you're staring into the barrels of two merciful guns. He drags his hand over to where yours is resting on the gravel and tentatively covers your fingers with his.